<p>Playing some of the new group content has made it clear to me that the devs and I have very different definitions of "group."  I define a group as two to six friends and guildmates, of varying levels, degrees of skill, and spiffiness of gear.  The devs apparently define a group as six level 80 hard-core raiders with all the best stuff in the game.</p><p>As an example: Befallen.  I tried this with a full guild group last night, levels ranging from 54 to 80.  We all mentored down to 54, and we were repeatedly slaughtered by the enormous waves of very nasty undead that appeared so quickly that we were usually fighting two or three encounters at once.  Then we tried mentoring to 59, then 61 (in the same instance), and even when the undead were all green to us, we were being ripped to shreds before we could get anywhere near the fellow who was summoning them.  I shudder to think of what would happen to us in a level 80 instance.</p><p>When I played Eve Online, the instances there scaled automatically to the level <em>and number</em> of people in a group.  I'd love to see something like this in EQII, or at least to see some content (other than doing solo quests as a group) for smaller or less super-uber-awesome-l33t groups.</p>

<p>Try some of the other zones.  The nice thing about this expansion is that there are several levels of hard so everyone has something to do.  I haven't done any 'advanced' ones yet but I've had fun going to the easy ones with any six guild members who happen to be online and I've also had fun going to the 'moderately advanced' ones with a well balanced group of raiders. </p><p>Cavern of the Afflicted is listed as 'moderately easy' but that's only with a decent amount of DPS... you have to keep moving.  Also, our tank told us to not hit mobs as they are incoming because some of the group is probably in range still of some other group... waiting until they are all in camp seems to help avoid some social agro.</p><p>EDIT:  Dev posted in another thread that the HPs are being reduced in mentored dungeons.  So... try again (although I'd still skip CotA if you don't have a well balanced group at least to start out with).  I'd really recommend the Everforst ones. </p><p><strong>Everfrost</strong><span style="color: #32cd32;">Miragul’s Phylactery: Scion of Ice </span><span style="color: #008000;">Miragul’s Phylactery: The Anathema </span><span style="color: #ffff00;">Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible </span><strong>Lavastorm</strong><span style="color: #32cd32;">The Deep Forge </span><span style="color: #008000;">Najena’s Hollow </span><strong>Commonlands</strong><span style="color: #008000;">Cavern of the Afflicted </span><span style="color: #ffff00;">Befallen: Halls of the Forsaken </span><span style="color: #ffa500;">Necrotic Asylum </span><strong>Loping Plains</strong><span style="color: #32cd32;">Evernight Abbey </span><span style="color: #008000;">Mistmyr Manor </span><span style="color: #ffa500;">Ravenscale Repository </span><strong>Fens of Nathsar</strong><span style="color: #008000;">Veksar </span><span style="color: #008000;">Nu’Roga </span><span style="color: #ffa500;">Kor’sha </span><strong>Moors of Ykesha</strong><span style="color: #32cd32;">Obelisk of Ahkzul </span><span style="color: #ffff00;">Anchor of Bazzul </span><span style="color: #ffff00;">Upper Guk </span><span style="color: #ffa500;">Lower Guk </span><span style="color: #800000;">Palace of Ferzhul </span><span style="color: #800000;">Guk Stronghold </span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Difficulty</strong></span><span style="color: #32cd32;"><strong>Easy</strong> </span><span style="color: #008000;"><strong>Easy to Moderate</strong> </span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><strong>Moderate</strong></span><span style="color: #ffa500;"><strong>Moderate to Advanced</strong> </span><span style="color: #800000;"><strong>Advanced</strong> </span></p>

<p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>As an example: Befallen.  I tried this with a full guild group last night, levels ranging from 54 to 80.  We all mentored down to 54, and we were repeatedly slaughtered</p></blockquote><p>The reason for that happening is that unfortunately the zones currently dont scale correctly (except scion of ice ones which have been somewhat fixed), so you where basically facing level appropriate mobs but with the hp, dps, aoe's and effects of level 80 mobs.</p><p>A patch is on the way for it, should make it to live this week according to a dev post in a other part of the forum.</p>

<p>My first experience with Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted was not Easy. The fast respawns and large groups sent us packing. <strong>(Edited)</strong></p><p>Try:</p><ul><li>Miragul's: Scion of Ice (should be able to clear it)</li><li>Najena's: Deep Forge (don't bother with the boss)</li><li>Najena's Hollow (again, don't bother with the last nameds)</li><li>Obelisk of Ahkzul (no shards, but 15plat chest and some great loot possibilities)</li></ul><p>The bonus shard chests for Scion of Ice and Najena's Hollow are easy to get, so that's 2 shards per dungeon. 4 shards if you happen to be doing the Daily Double (and got the quest in Moors for it). If you do two dungeons a day for a week and a half and you should have ~40 shards per person, which is enough for the full set of regular Void Shard armor if you have someone tradeskill them for you (1 void shard discount per piece).</p><p>Another week and you've got a few jewelry items plus one magical jewelry or one shield/charm/cloak/other item. The charm slot items are particularly effective upgrades over the extremely limited options we have had in the past.</p>

<p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I define a group as two to six friends and guildmates, of varying levels, degrees of skill, and spiffiness of gear.  The devs apparently define a group as six level 80 hard-core raiders with all the best stuff in the game.</p></blockquote><p>The Dev's define a group as 6 equal level folks. Nice jab at raiders but they are innocent in this. Part of the problem you experienced is the fact that scaling doesn't work well in these new instances, dev's have already posted this. My suggestion is have everyone level 80 and your group of 6 should be fine.</p><p>Also realize that some of these dungeons are progressive, meaning that you need to get the later set of legendary void shard gear in-order to acomplish them.</p>

<p>what i find sadly amusing is that on these very forums , for years, group players have been asking for group content to be engaging, challanging, and more like mini raids , where the group has to work as a team to complete zones, do quests in the zones , figure out scripts and get alternate rewards from doing the zones then just drop items(wonder where all the group players that have been asking for this are /ponder... oh yeah lol they are playing in TSO  )</p><p>also they have asked for fabled items from solo and group quests and zones ....you got that also ( i dont see raiders crying the blues over it either /wierd huh ? , those bad evil mean raider jerkheads /chuckle )</p><p>the devs have heard your pleas, they have given the group game exactly what it has been lacking, and what it has been Begging for.   you have gotten ALL of the above , and add to it you also have Progression, you have an entire year to Work on these Zones ( and IMO they will ALL be beaten by Casual groupers within the next 2 months or less )</p><p>i have seen Massive amounts of returning players in TSO , and every one i know has been having a Blast in the new group zones, and the lvl channel is full of people looking for groups for these group zones , alot of raid guild have even halted raiding for a week or more to play around in them, they truely did a fantastic job of it , and i perosnaly suggest finding a couple more friend to go into these zones , it is worth it )</p><p>this is a 90 % a level 80 expansion , it is ment for progression from the Lvl 80 ROK zones, you can still go there you know that right ? those zones still exist : ) and Many players still need thier Epic quest updates in those zones,</p><p>can you walts right into any zone in TSo and clear it with any group ? NO</p><p>can any Guild Worldwide Walk into the hardest Raid zone in TSO right now and clear it ? NO</p><p>groupers need to gear up thru the lesser group zones, get shard gear, drops, quest items, to advance to the harder zones</p><p>Raidrs need to do the lesser raids to gear up to get to advance to the harder zones</p><p>your level 80 with the ability to get 200 aa's ,  the game can't stay Carebear forever , it was bleeding players like a wet diaper at endgame , if you didn't take note of the barren wasteland onmost servers at peak hours of the day ,</p><p>in total with the rok zones you have over 27 Group Dungeons in the game to play in, you Have Scalable instances in TSO you can bring in a lower toon that you can lower the mobs down a bit, and Walla you have a group instance in TSO that Less then a full group can clear .</p>

<p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>When I played <span style="text-decoration: line-through;"><span style="color: #ffcc00;">Eve Online</span></span>, the instances there scaled automatically to the level <em>and number</em> of people in a group.  I'd love to see something like this in EQII, or at least to see some content (other than doing solo quests as a group) for smaller or less super-uber-awesome-l33t groups.</p></blockquote><p>This must be a mistake.</p><p>Eve Online has no levels and no instances.</p>

<p><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted is not Easy.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, the one time I've done it -- with a non-raid-geared PUG -- it was mostly easy. We wiped twice, entirely due to poor execution on our parts; both times we picked ourselves up, wiped off the dust, & drove on.</p><p>I'm just not understanding why people think CotA is "hard", I guess.</p>

<p>JenarieII -- Thank you!  That's a most helpful list. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Killerbee3000 -- Thanks for explaining that.  I hadn't realized it was a known bug, though it did have a certain glitchy flavor to it.</p><p>feldon30 -- I've tried the Scion of Ice dungeon, and it wasn't difficult with a full mentored group.  But I do wish there were a few that could be completed unmentored, with less than a full group.</p><p>Ohiv -- I wasn't making a jab at raiders.  My complaint is directed to the developers, which should be obvious.  I am basing my complaint upon my experience with a full group of level 80 characters, none of whom had raid-level gear (or at least not much of it).  If the devs have designed the dungeons so that you really need raid-level gear to survive them, I fail to see how I'm making a jab at raiders if I point out that this leaves non-raiders out in the cold.  I have no problem with raiders and raiding.  But if you need raid gear to survive a group dungeon, that kinda defeats the purpose (assuming the purpose really is to give non-raiders something to do).</p><p>Giralus -- A challenge would be fantastic.  I'd love to see one.  I've been waiting to see one from the day I first installed EQ2.  So far, I've seen only things that are far too easy, things that are impossible until I find a write-up online but too easy afterward, and "challenges" like the one in Befallen.  Endless waves of mobs aren't a challenge, they're an annoyance.  One triple-wave was a fantastic fight, took coordination and concentration.  We were thrilled to survive.  Then another triple-wave hit before we'd even regained half our power -- that's not a challenge, that's either a bug or bad design.</p><p>As for this being 90% a level 80 zone, if that's the case, then why do the dungeons scale down to level 50?</p><p>Brigh -- Sorry, slight error in communication.  I maintained EQ2 terms. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Eve does have instances, in the form of complexes, which would become more powerful based on the number of players and (if I recall correctly) ship types.  Eve has no levels, but it does have ship types, which, since you need certain skill levels, works out to more or less the same thing.</p>

<p>yes the instance is hard but you dont need raid geared groups to do it.. befallen is on of thoughs places where 2-3 healers is a must   if you go 2 we found out that warden mystic combo works best for the instances and if you have another healer wich we did use the second time in we used a group of SK ranger swasy mystic warden templar the zone was then easy mode.. i will admit you need teamwork in these really in game voice or vent is a must so that your hole groups is on the same page...</p><p>i do fill bad for some of you anti social people hate joining groups but you had your expansion let us social people have are expansion and please fore love of all things pleae stop crying that things are too hard the game has been water down so much that it has killed the game i give SOE props for making somthing hard and finnaly making you fill like you did somthing worthy when you do these</p>

<p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Brigh -- Sorry, slight error in communication.  I maintained EQ2 terms. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />  Eve does have instances, in the form of complexes, which would become more powerful based on the number of players and (if I recall correctly) ship types.  Eve has no levels, but it does have ship types, which, since you need certain skill levels, works out to more or less the same thing.</p></blockquote><p>Instances implies only you and / or your group can enter. Eve has none of these. Anyone can get into your 'plex'.</p><p>They do not scale. They are what they are. Sometimes they have DED ratings to give you an indication (and an actual blocking out if you dont have the proper ship type) of the difficulty.</p><p>Yes I play Eve Online (since January of this year).</p>

<p>Most of the new instances have little tricks to them.  The Caverns instance off of Befallen, has lots and lots of encounter stuff.  The respawn you're seeing towards the beginning will continue until the named in the second room is killed.  Like has been said earlier in the thread, the hit points and such are bugged for the mentoring.</p><p>If you were in a non-mentored group with poor encounter DPS, you can get around that limitation in this zone by simply killing all but one of each encounter--let the last one just beat on the tank (but do not kill it).  Move on to the next encounter in your way, keeping another mob from that encounter alive.  Eventually you'll be down to 3 no-arrow adds and be in the named room.  Finish those three adds off, then rush the named and you will get no more respawn. </p><p>The above strat would work for a lesser geared group that is having trouble keeping the groups down long enough to kill the named before respawn.  Most groups just haul in some good AE/encounter DPS and tear through them, but there's ways for any group setup to accomplish this zone.</p>

<p>Ilmarinien wrote : As for this being 90% a level 80 expansion, if that's the case, then why do the dungeons scale down to level 50?</p><p>that was the other 10 % i was talking about,  we  have a Hugemongos solo zone for endgame 75 +, we have 4 raids for Endgame raiding . and we have a bunch of instances for lvl 80 .  a few scalable instances = 10 % (ok so maybe 8 % or 12 % lol ) there is No new Low/mid level lands, no new playable races, no new low level quests ( are there even low level quests for the Scalable instances ? ,dont know havent been there yet , to busy with the mountian of content in tso at endgame <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> </p><p>p.s. i have seen a total of "zero" low level group's trying to from up in lvl chat looking to do the new scalable instances <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>IMO , i would have prefered IF they had made 4 of the new zones for 2-4 players at lvl 80, instead of the Scalaeble instance , i do beleive Small group players should have some content designed for them , 1 easy, 2 medium, and 1 hard, IF they had done this i think TSo would have had content for every play style , {borrowing a idea from another thread,  these Small group zones could have given shard fragments , so you would need to do 1 of the zones 4 times to complete a whole shard, i think its a great idea, and hoepfully the devs see it and agree, eq2 is a game for all play styles , and i enjoy all aspects of that as i solo,group and raid, but yeahit is fun sometimes to just grab 2 or 3 friends and have a couple places to go .</p>

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted is not Easy.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, the one time I've done it -- with a non-raid-geared PUG -- it was mostly easy. We wiped twice, entirely due to poor execution on our parts; both times we picked ourselves up, wiped off the dust, & drove on.</p><p>I'm just not understanding why people think CotA is "hard", I guess.</p></blockquote><p>The constant fearing is what makes it incredibly annoying. You have your tank, or worse your healers, running off before it can be cleared. It's basically a non-stop chain pull to the named on the pedestal there, and you really need AE dps or you're going to be thrusting your head into a wall. It's an "easy" instance that requires fairly specific group composition, or well-geared toons, to avoid frustration.</p>

<p>Sedenten -- The problem with the "trick" to the Caverns is that there is absolutely no way to figure out what it is, save looking it up on EQ2i or a similar website or talking to someone who has been there and knows.  This is my biggest complaint about quest and dungeon design in this game: there are usually too few clues, or none at all.  Somehow, I'm supposed to know to kill a particular monster in a particular room when I can't see it, can't get to the room alive, have no idea where the waves of undead are coming from, and there are no scrawled messages on the wall reading, "Stop the Evil Whatsit," or bits of parchment suggesting that the Evil Whatsit really enjoys raising undead, or system messages saying, "With a grim chuckle, the Evil Whatsit raises another wave of undead."  It's frustrating, it is.</p><p>Giralus -- I believe I misunderstood how you meant the "90% for level 80" comment.  I thought you were saying not to bother with it until everyone in my guild hit level 80.  So, whoops. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Sorry 'bout that.</p>

<p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Somehow, I'm supposed to know to kill a particular monster in a particular room when I can't see it, can't get to the room alive, have no idea where the waves of undead are coming from, and there are no scrawled messages on the wall reading, "Stop the Evil Whatsit," or bits of parchment suggesting that the Evil Whatsit really enjoys raising undead, or system messages saying, "With a grim chuckle, the Evil Whatsit raises another wave of undead."  It's frustrating, it is.</p></blockquote><p>The dwarf in the room to the left tells you to kill them.</p>

<p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem with the "trick" to the Caverns is that there is absolutely no way to figure out what it is, save looking it up on EQ2i or a similar website or talking to someone who has been there and knows.  This is my biggest complaint about quest and dungeon design in this game: there are usually too few clues, or none at all.  Somehow, I'm supposed to know to kill a particular monster in a particular room when I can't see it, can't get to the room alive, have no idea where the waves of undead are coming from, and there are no scrawled messages on the wall reading, "Stop the Evil Whatsit," or bits of parchment suggesting that the Evil Whatsit really enjoys raising undead, or system messages saying, "With a grim chuckle, the Evil Whatsit raises another wave of undead."  It's frustrating, it is.</p></blockquote><p>I have to disagree here.  I have cleared about half the instances so far and have not looked at a single "write up" on any of them. The clues are there if you are attentive and aware of your surroundings.  And yes there is an npc that gives you a hint for this zone but our group didn't need it.  We zoned in. Wiped once to the respawning adds and immediately figured out that we needed to be more careful on the pulls and move fast. We figured that the whole zone probably wasn't like this and started looking for a way to shut off the waves of mobs.  It was just common sense. (when something spawns too fast in eq2 there is almost always a way to turn it off, several of the zones have things similar to this). We got to the mob on our third try and all was good. </p><p>Seriously though if its the zone scaling thats bugged then yeah they need to fix it (and it sounds like that fix is allready underway)  But please don't change the difficulty of these zones. They are just right.</p>

<p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Sedenten -- The problem with the "trick" to the Caverns is that there is absolutely no way to figure out what it is, save looking it up on EQ2i or a similar website or talking to someone who has been there and knows.  This is my biggest complaint about quest and dungeon design in this game: there are usually too few clues, or none at all.  Somehow, I'm supposed to know to kill a particular monster in a particular room when I can't see it, can't get to the room alive, have no idea where the waves of undead are coming from, and there are no scrawled messages on the wall reading, "Stop the Evil Whatsit," or bits of parchment suggesting that the Evil Whatsit really enjoys raising undead, or system messages saying, "With a grim chuckle, the Evil Whatsit raises another wave of undead."  It's frustrating, it is.</p><p>Giralus -- I believe I misunderstood how you meant the "90% for level 80" comment.  I thought you were saying not to bother with it until everyone in my guild hit level 80.  So, whoops. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />  Sorry 'bout that.</p></blockquote><p>I've been to Caverns of the Afflicted and found it really fun, we had absolutely no clue about any of the strats before we entered.  We were a pretty well geared group wearing the good stuff from RoK instances with a bit of T1 fabled, obviously doing it at 80 though.</p><p>First pull...  got tons of mobs, died (mental note:  social aggro = bad)</p><p>Second pull...  carefully pulled mobs ensuring gatekeeper was at other end of corridor before doing so, and the dps waited until the mobs were all on us.  Killed stuff.</p><p>Later pulls, moved as fast as we could after we saw the repop time, killing the whatsisface chappy that stops the repops stopped the repops.  That got filed in "useful things to know".</p><p>Event at bottom of well, obviously an event with the on screen script.  Kill stuff till named shows up then kill named.</p><p>Crawler Queen killed us a lot, we couldn't work out what to do when she went underground.  Eventually it twigged that she only went after the people that moved.  So we had everyone stand still when she went underground and she died easy.</p><p>Found more insta-repop mobs, reasoned we had to fast-chain pull to a named somewhere beyond (like before) died a few times due to poor player positioning.  In the end we went the wrong way and ended up killing Bonegrinder first (with a shortage of power due to chain pulls).  Just tanked him on his little stage and killed him (veeery slowly as the dps ran out of power).  Carried on and killed other repoppymob named.  Oh, then we noticed that we had forgotten the fiery dude, we tried pulling a mob from the room, it repopped instantly, so we just pulled the named out.  No worries.</p><p>Group was good, but not perfect...  Guardian, Inquisitor, Warden (78-79 I think), Ranger, Warlock and Dirge.  We went in with plenty of aoe dps, which was nice.  Still, intelligent pull tactics can overcome a lack of aoe dps.</p><p>Of the instances I've done about 4 were unknowns before the group entered and we cleared them all, some were pure pick-ups, some were guild groups and some were a mixture of the two.  It takes a bit of getting used to after hitting the same three (tactically simple) instances over and over again sure, but once you learn how to read the prompts and watch the mobs it all becomes far easier.</p><p>Has to be said that the difficulty rating of instances is slightly misleading.  The different instances tend to work different people to different levels.  Cavern was really working the dps and tank, to avoid the nasty multi-mob situations.  Whereas Necrotic Asylum was pretty simple from a tank's perspective (still fun though), the healers had a really interesting time of it though.</p><p>I'm really liking the new setup.  The easy zones are easy and the hard zones are hard.  But all require a level of awareness that is quite new and refreshing.  It's all doable though (except the stuff that isn't, like the non-scaling mobs).</p>

<p>The bad thing is groups now require</p><p>Plate Tank</p><p>2 Healers</p><p>1 Mezzer</p><p>That leaves a lot of classes stuck LFG</p>

<p><cite>Brigh wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>When I played <span style="text-decoration: line-through;"><span style="color: #ffcc00;">Eve Online</span></span>, the instances there scaled automatically to the level <em>and number</em> of people in a group. I'd love to see something like this in EQII, or at least to see some content (other than doing solo quests as a group) for smaller or less super-uber-awesome-l33t groups.</p></blockquote><p>This must be a mistake.</p><p>Eve Online has no levels and no instances.</p></blockquote><p>Actually EVE Online DOES have instances <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" /> When last did you play?</p>

<p>It's refreshing not being able to clear every current-tier instance in an hour or two every day.</p>

<p><cite>Giralus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>what i find sadly amusing is that on these very forums , for years, group players have been asking for group content to be engaging, challanging, and more like mini raids , where the group has to work as a team to complete zones, do quests in the zones , figure out scripts and get alternate rewards from doing the zones then just drop items(wonder where all the group players that have been asking for this are /ponder... oh yeah lol they are playing in TSO )</p><p>also they have asked for fabled items from solo and group quests and zones ....you got that also ( i dont see raiders crying the blues over it either /wierd huh ? , those bad evil mean raider jerkheads /chuckle )</p><p>the devs have heard your pleas, they have given the group game exactly what it has been lacking, and what it has been Begging for. you have gotten ALL of the above , and add to it you also have Progression, you have an entire year to Work on these Zones ( and IMO they will ALL be beaten by Casual groupers within the next 2 months or less )</p><p>i have seen Massive amounts of returning players in TSO , and every one i know has been having a Blast in the new group zones, and the lvl channel is full of people looking for groups for these group zones , alot of raid guild have even halted raiding for a week or more to play around in them, they truely did a fantastic job of it , and i perosnaly suggest finding a couple more friend to go into these zones , it is worth it )</p><p>this is a 90 % a level 80 expansion , it is ment for progression from the Lvl 80 ROK zones, you can still go there you know that right ? those zones still exist : ) and Many players still need thier Epic quest updates in those zones,</p><p>can you walts right into any zone in TSo and clear it with any group ? NO</p><p>can any Guild Worldwide Walk into the hardest Raid zone in TSO right now and clear it ? NO</p><p>groupers need to gear up thru the lesser group zones, get shard gear, drops, quest items, to advance to the harder zones</p><p>Raidrs need to do the lesser raids to gear up to get to advance to the harder zones</p><p>your level 80 with the ability to get 200 aa's , the game can't stay Carebear forever , it was bleeding players like a wet diaper at endgame , if you didn't take note of the barren wasteland onmost servers at peak hours of the day ,</p><p>in total with the rok zones you have over 27 Group Dungeons in the game to play in, you Have Scalable instances in TSO you can bring in a lower toon that you can lower the mobs down a bit, and Walla you have a group instance in TSO that Less then a full group can clear .</p></blockquote><p>Spot on. Post of the year award.</p><p>but you forgot to add..... tons of new stuff for crafters. IMHO i think the game has reahced a point where there is CRAPLOADS to do. If you find yoruself bored, might want to just call it quits. no game out there right now has this large of a variety of things to do at end level.</p>

<p><cite>Thunndar316 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The bad thing is groups now require</p><p>Plate Tank</p><p>2 Healers</p><p>1 Mezzer</p><p>That leaves a lot of classes stuck LFG</p></blockquote><p>The majority of people who play this game are not new players and have more than one toon at 80. I know it is not a perfect situation. I have one dps one healer. Always something for me to do.</p><p>I do see you looking for people in 70-79 chat all the time for groups.</p><p>I have an 80 Mystic.80 warlock. The wife has an 80 illy. hit us up sometime if your short  and need some help.</p>

<p><cite>zaneluke wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thunndar316 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The bad thing is groups now require</p><p>Plate Tank</p><p>2 Healers</p><p>1 Mezzer</p><p>That leaves a lot of classes stuck LFG</p></blockquote><p>The majority of people who play this game are not new players and have more than one toon at 80. I know it is not a perfect situation. I have one dps one healer. Always something for me to do.</p><p>I do see you looking for people in 70-79 chat all the time for groups.</p><p>I have an 80 Mystic.80 warlock. The wife has an 80 illy. hit us up sometime if your short  and need some help.</p></blockquote><p>Sure thing <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p>

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted is not Easy.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, the one time I've done it -- with a non-raid-geared PUG -- it was mostly easy. We wiped twice, entirely due to poor execution on our parts; both times we picked ourselves up, wiped off the dust, & drove on.</p><p>I'm just not understanding why people think CotA is "hard", I guess.</p></blockquote><p>Until I read this thread, I did not know it was possible to turn off the waves of respawns. We will give it another shot. We have a rather low group sustained DPS which makes us vulnerable to situations like the ring event at the bottom of Najena's Hollow. Fortunately, void shards can be attained without killing dungeon bosses.</p><p>We cleared the first room, then the hallway, then the room with the dwarf who gave the quest, then we looked out in the hallway and they'd already respawned. We called it quits not long after because we had a couple of outsiders who were used to a faster pace.</p>

<p><cite>Ohiv wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Nice jab at raiders but they are innocent in this</p></blockquote><p>Not THAT innocent. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Although the devs tested the TSO dungeons in legendary, most of the Beta testers were full fabled/mythical and for the last month of Beta, most groups were "looking for mythical copied X,Y,Z".</p>

<p><cite>Thunndar316 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The bad thing is groups now require</p><p>Plate Tank</p><p>2 Healers</p><p>1 Mezzer</p><p>That leaves a lot of classes stuck LFG</p></blockquote><p>I've done 4 TSO instances now, & not once have we had a mezzer in the group. Of course, the tank was plate all four times, but there are four plate tanks & only two leather tanks, so it kinda stands to reason that most/all groups will have a plate fighter tanking.</p><p>OTOH, I'm betting that I could Swashy-tank the first floor of OoA, with nothing but a Warden healing me & a Necro DPSing. So much for your "required" group makeups! In any event, since you're apparently a Pro Raider, soon to have your mythical, I'm not sure what the issue is. You have, on average, better gear than I do --  yet I'm the one saying everything in TSO is fine, & you're the one complaining.</p>

<p><cite>Thunndar316 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The bad thing is groups now require</p><p>Plate Tank</p><p>2 Healers</p><p>1 Mezzer</p><p>That leaves a lot of classes stuck LFG</p></blockquote><p>That's not true, I have tanked a lot of the new instances with no problem.  And when there was a problem it has yet to be because I couldn't take the damage. (its almost always not enough dps, or not enough ae DPS).</p>

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Befallen: Cavern of the Afflicted is not Easy.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, the one time I've done it -- with a non-raid-geared PUG -- it was mostly easy. We wiped twice, entirely due to poor execution on our parts; both times we picked ourselves up, wiped off the dust, & drove on.</p><p>I'm just not understanding why people think CotA is "hard", I guess.</p></blockquote><p>The constant fearing is what makes it incredibly annoying. You have your tank, or worse your healers, running off before it can be cleared. It's basically a non-stop chain pull to the named on the pedestal there, and you really need AE dps or you're going to be thrusting your head into a wall. It's an "easy" instance that requires fairly specific group composition, or well-geared toons, to avoid frustration.</p></blockquote><p>Your healers should be remaining back at a distance.  Your tank should be turning targets away from the group.  Your healers should be curing.  Your entire group should care about their resistances at least by some moderate standard.</p><p>Your group does not need specific group compositions, though several classes will have an easier time there than in other dungeons.  Here's an idea - don't choose the dungeon before you gather your group.  Some dungeons are easier if you have AE classes.  Others are easier if you have enchanters.  Others are easier if you bring stronger healing, while some dungeons can be solo healed.  Again:  GATHER GROUP FIRST, THEN CHOOSE TARGET DUNGEON.  It's not as if there aren't dozens of dungeons to choose from here, you know.</p>

<p><cite>Ilmarinen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>  The devs apparently define a group as six level 80 hard-core raiders with all the best stuff in the game.</p></blockquote><p>Exactly and they provide no way for mainly solo players to catch up in someway. Anyone who hasn't raided since RoK was realeased is outta luck. Next expansion will be even worse.</p>